Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Stitch Heaven Salutes Barbara G Walker

Earlier this autumn I came across this DVD and I was intrigued. A few weeks later I was asked if I was interested in reviewing it. Ofcourse I said yes. I'm a big Barbara Walker fan. Barbara is probably most famous for her knitting treasuries and her book 'Knitting from the top'. I would guess most hand knit designers have at least one, if not all, of Barbara's treasuries in their library. I bought all four a few years ago and refer to them again and again. They are amazing treasuries of stitch patterns.

Now TriCoast Entertainment have taken some of the stitches from Barbara's books and compiled them into a DVD. The DVD contains 18 stitch-alongs of clear videos showing various stitch patterns. Experienced knitters demonstrate stitch by stitch, row by row how to work a variety of stitches including lace, cables, bobbles, colourwork and slipped stitches. Written instructions and charts are also shown.

But that's not all, this Stitch Heaven DVD also contains an interview with Barbara Walker which was the highlight for me. I love Barbara's work, I think she's probably one of the most influential knitters of the 20th century and a lot of today's designers use Barbara's work as inspiration and have learnt from her books.

All in all there are over 3.5 hours of viewing on this DVD.

So what's the advantage of watching this DVD instead of learning these stitch patterns from Barbara's books? I'm a very visual learner and much prefer to be shown something rather than reading it in books. The books have written instructions for the stitches and one of the books have charts. The DVD will show you how each stitch on every row is worked. You can pause, rewind and re-play as many times as you want. It's like having a teacher in the room with you.

Why not put this DVD on your Christmas list!

I love this DVD and Stitch Heaven have other offerings too. Check out their website and their blog for more information on this DVD and the other DVDs they offer.